World Business Quick Take

Agencies

Thu, Sep 19, 2013 - Page 15

GAMING

Electronic Arts names CEO

Video game giant Electronic Arts on Tuesday named Andrew Wilson as its new chief executive. Wilson, who had been heading the company’s sports unit and online portal for digital games, joined the California group in 2000 and worked in Asia and as head of the FIFA game titles. Executive chairman Larry Probst said the company had conducted a “rigorous search,” both inside and outside the company. Electronic Arts is known for its Sims titles, and the Battlefield and Need for Speed series.

ENERGY

Alaska wants LNG plant

Alaska wants ConocoPhillips to reopen its mothballed Kenai Peninsula liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant to provide an incentive for petroleum companies to explore and invest in Cook Inlet. In a Sept. 5 letter to ConocoPhillips president Trond-Erik Johansen, acting Natural Resources commissioner Joe Balash requested that the company apply for a three-year federal LNG export license for the plant at Nikiski, about 110km southwest of Anchorage. ConocoPhillips in March announced it would not extend its natural gas export license beyond March 31, but said it would consider a new license if the needs of local gas markets were met and sufficient natural gas was on hand to export.

PHARMACEUTICALS

Epanova decision in May

US regulators have accepted an experimental fish oil-based heart drug from AstraZeneca for review and will make a decision on whether to approve it by May next year. Epanova, for treating people with very high levels of fatty triglycerides in their blood, was developed by Omthera Pharmaceuticals, which AstraZeneca acquired earlier this year. AstraZeneca yesterday said that the US Food and Drug Administration had set a date of May 5 to act on the Epanova submission. Cardiovascular medicine is a key area for AstraZeneca, whose top-selling drug is the cholesterol fighter Crestor. The UK-based group is working on a fixed-dose combination of Crestor and Epanova that, if successful, would extend the Crestor franchise beyond 2016, when the drug’s US patent ends.

FINANCE

Trader says he is scapegoat

A former JPMorgan Chase trader said on Tuesday that the government was making him a scapegoat for the “London whale” trades while letting off his boss. Lawyers for Julien Grout, who was indicted by a grand jury on Monday for fraud and false securities filings in the case, said that he acted under orders from his managers in masking the massive derivatives losses that rocked the bank last year. Grout, who worked under senior trader Bruno Iksil in JPMorgan’s London office, “has been unjustly used as a pawn in the government’s attempt to settle its highly politicized case against JPMorgan Chase,” said Edward Little, an attorney for Grout.

INTERNET

3D search-printer developed

Yahoo Japan Corp has developed a voice-activated Internet search that links to a 3D printer, letting users look online for blueprints to deliver solid objects in a few minutes, the company said. The search engine scours the Internet for information that it can use to print palm-sized renderings of items as diverse as hippopotamuses or fighter jets. The devices use slices of information about a 3D object and gradually deposits fine layers of material — such as plastic, carbon or metal — to build a copy. Yahoo Japan has no firm plans on commercializing the technology.